1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to captioning in web video.
2. Related Art
Video is increasingly being accessed by remote users over networks, such as the Internet. The rise of the World Wide Web, including various web applications, protocols, and related networking and computing technologies has made it possible for remote users to view and to play video.
Timed text, such as a caption or subtitle, is sometimes provided with video content and is “timed” so that certain text appears in association with certain portions of a video content. Timed text can serve a number of purposes. First, timed text can make the dialogue understandable to the hearing impaired. Second, timed text can make the video understandable in environments where audio is unavailable or not permitted. Third, timed text can provide commentary to video with educational or entertainment value. Finally, timed text can translate the audio for those who do not understand the language of the dialogue. Of course, the benefits of timed text only arise when the timed text is available in a viewer's language.
Web video services are often available globally and many videos are available produced by individuals from other countries. For those videos, timed text is often not available in the viewer's language. Manual translation of timed text can be expensive and time-consuming.